Eric Alterman: Remembering What Reagan Did in Guatemala

Remember how loveable and optimistic Ronald Reagan was? Remember how he did
nothing but make us feel good about ourselves and restore respect for America;
our moral values and our position of leadership in the world? I was reading
the galley pages of When
Presidents Lie yesterday and came across this episode. Funny how it didnt
make it into any of the SCLM coverage last week. Tim? Chris? Im here for
you guys if you need it. Footnotes are free:

U.S. leaders from Eisenhower and Dulles through Nixon, Ford and Kissinger
ignored the regimes brutality in deference to its anti-Communism. But
the Carter administration complicated its position by denouncing the regimes
human rights record, ultimately leading Guatemala to reject U.S. aid as inexcusable
interference in its internal affairs. By 1982, during the Reagan administration,
the killing appeared to be reaching a kind of gruesome climax. Under the dictatorship
of General Efrain Rios Montt, a born-again evangelical Christian, the army
massacred as many as 15,000 Indians on the suspicion that they had cooperated
with, or might offer aid to, anti-government guerrillas. Entire villages were
leveled to aid the counterinsurgency and countless peasants were forcibly
relocated to aid the counterinsurgency. At one point, as many as 40,000 survivors
tried to find refuge in Mexico, Army helicopters strafed the camps. It was
at this propitious moment that President Reagan took the opportunity to congratulate
Rios Montt for his dedication to democracy, adding that he had been getting
a bum rap from U.S. liberals in Congress and the media. Moreover,
in the midst of this killing rampage, the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, Frederic
Chapin announced, The killings have stopped . The Guatemalan government
has come out of the darkness and into the light. In fact, the number
of civilians killed by death squads doubled to roughly 220 a month by late
1983. In a secret report to his superiors, Chapin decried the horrible
human rights realities in Guatemala, and argued that a consistent policy
demanded that either the U.S. overlook the record and emphasize the
strategic concept or we can pursue a higher moral path. The Reagan administration
ignored his advice. Though Congress would not authorize additional aid, U.S.
funds still reached Rios Montt through Israel and Taiwan, in addition to the
still-secret amounts available via the CIA. Following an election in 1985,
the U.S. embassy publicly declared that the final step in the re-establishment
of democracy in Guatemala had taken place," and accordingly restored
all of its aid moneys.